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Dos And don’ts from A dAting-App ghostwriter

Recently, I spoke to Meredith Golden, a married mother of two, who, for US$2,000 a month will take over your dating apps and impersonate you — doing all the matching and messaging on your behalf. Here are her dos and don’ts for finding a valentine online:

DON’T ASK SOMEONE ‘HEY, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?’

Go ahead and note what kind of relationship you’re looking for in your bio — experts usually recommend doing that — but avoid asking about specific character traits. Men are more inclined to ask this question than women are, Golden says. And while it might seem innocuous, Golden thinks it gets you nowhere. “It’s such a silly question,” she says. Because even the “right” answers don’t mean much until you’ve met and can judge whether you have chemistry.

KEEP THE CONVERSATION MOVING

A big rule of dating apps is just simple manners, Golden says. “If someone asks you a question, respond and ask a question back,” Golden says, adding you should respond in a timely manner — back and forth twice a day so that you don’t lose momentum. This one sounds so easy, and yet anyone who’s on dating apps will tell you, it’s apparently very difficult

BE CONSISTENT

Golden meets with singles who will say something like “Wednesday’s my dating-app day.” It doesn’t really work that way, Golden says. “You can’t be on for 16 hours a day,” but if someone consistently spends 30 minutes a day swiping and messaging, Monday through Friday, that could yield one date a week.

AFTER THREE TO FOUR DAYS OF CHATTING, SCHEDULE A DATE

You have to do more than message consistently to make dating apps work for you. That person who messages consistently, asking about your day, your week, your weekend — over several weeks or weekends — without asking you out? It’s not that your answers aren’t riveting. He just wants a pen pal. “They’re on there to boost their ego,” Golden says. “They’re just on it for sport.”

Golden suggests asking someone out after three to four days of messaging. It’s fine if you schedule a week or two weeks out — just make sure you get something on the books. If a date isn’t happening in that time frame, unmatch and move on.